Word Workout: Building a Muscular Vocabulary in 10 Easy Steps

492 Pages·2014·2.23 MB·English

by  Charles Harrington Elster

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use
only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright
infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you
are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher
at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Introduction
Key to Pronunciation
List of Keywords

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
Level 6
Level 7
Level 8
Level 9
Level 10

Notes
Word Workout Selected Bibliography
Also by Charles Harrington Elster
About the Author
Copyright
INTRODUCTION
IN TODAY’S FAST-PACED WORLD, a large and precise vocabulary is a tremendous
asset. It is the basis of knowledge and the foundation of eloquence. If you aspire
to speak and write well—and think well—you owe it to yourself to build your
knowledge of words.
The notion of building your vocabulary may call to mind the dull drills of
grade school. But learning new words, and learning more about words, doesn’t
have to be tedious. Unlike with physical exercise, you can gain without pain.
Unlike with dieting, the rewards are permanent. Best of all, you can start
building your vocabulary at any age and, with a minimum of effort, keep it
growing for the rest of your life.
In fact, like physical exercise, which can enhance your quality of life no
matter what your age, vocabulary building can help keep your brain and memory
vital—even into your nineties.1 “Older adults can remember bigger vocabularies
than younger people,” says Christie Chung, associate professor of psychology at
Mills College, in Oakland, California, and director of the Mills Cognition
Laboratory. “Our semantic memory increases as we grow older.”
Building a versatile vocabulary is a form of exercise—one essential to your
professional, social, and even mental health. If you believe in the benefits of
exercise for your body, why not do the same for your mind? Like your muscles,
your brain needs regular stretching. And a workout with words is nowhere near
as taxing as twenty minutes on a StairMaster. In fact, flexing your word muscles
can be downright rejuvenating. (To rejuvenate, from re-, again, and the Latin
juvĕnis, young, means to make young again.) Of course, words won’t just come
to you; you must seek them out. And that’s one reason I’ve written Word
Workout: to make it easier for you to find, learn, and use new words. Consider
me your personal trainer in all things verbal, and consider this book your
personalized course in the ways and wonders of words.
Word Workout is not a set of flashcards masquerading as a book. Nor is it a
monotonous march through a swamp of words. It doesn’t rely on gimmicks or
warmed-over pop psychology. It doesn’t make you learn by rote or by hit-and-
run memorization. And it doesn’t take shortcuts, meaning that there aren’t any
superficial lessons with only a definition and a sample sentence. Word Workout
is the real McCoy: a comprehensive, accessible vocabulary-building program,
written by a nationally recognized expert on the English language, that will teach
you hundreds of relevant, vigorous words used by our most eloquent writers and
speakers.
If you’ve already completed my first vocabulary-building program for adults,
Verbal Advantage, you know this well. You know that research has shown that
we learn words in order of their difficulty, from easier words to harder ones, and
that the best way to build your word power is to study words in ascending order
of difficulty. That’s why Word Workout, like Verbal Advantage, is a graduated
program that begins with words known by most college graduates and ends with
words known by only the most educated, intelligent, and well-read adults. And,
even more than Verbal Advantage, Word Workout is chock-full of information
about synonyms, antonyms, and word origins. You’ll also get plenty of good
advice on usage and pronunciation, and there are review tests all along the way
to help reinforce what you’ve learned.
If you haven’t yet read Verbal Advantage, don’t worry. Word Workout is
modeled on Verbal Advantage, but it’s not a sequel or a prequel. It’s a
companion volume that teaches an entirely new set of words. In short, you’ll
learn a lot if you read this book, and a whole lot more if you read both.
Words are the key to knowledge, and knowledge is the key to success. Every
word you add to your vocabulary broadens your understanding of the world,
improves your comprehension of what you hear and read, and sharpens your
ability to express your ideas. That is the premise, and the promise, of Word
Workout—to help you become a more knowledgeable and confident user of the
English language in the most effective and entertaining way possible.
So grab your verbal gym suit and a bottle of Evian (did you know that’s
naive spelled backward?) and let me pump you up with a professional word
workout!
How Best to Use This Book Like Verbal Advantage, Word Workout is arranged
in ten increasingly challenging levels consisting of fifty keywords each, and each
level is divided into five sets of ten keyword discussions. After each of these sets
there is a review test. If you get eight answers or more right on the review test
you may proceed to the next set of ten keyword discussions. But if you score
fewer than eight correct you should review that set of keywords, or at least the
ones you got wrong, before continuing with the program.
When it comes to building your vocabulary there is no substitute for
discipline. Try to read Word Workout for a set amount of time each day,
preferably thirty minutes. You will also benefit if you go over the material a
second and even a third time before taking each review quiz and before
beginning each new level.
Also, don’t rush. You will make better progress if you take your time than if
you try to ingest everything in a few big bites. And please resist the temptation
to jump ahead. It’s all right to follow my cross-references, but you will gain the
most from Word Workout if you proceed through the lessons in order without
skipping around.
KEY TO PRONUNCIATION
a—at
a—final, woman ah—spa
ahr—car
air—fair ay—hay
aw—saw
ch—chip
e—let
e—item, novel ee—see
eer—deer i—sit
i—charity, April, nation kh—as in German ach, Scottish loch (a guttural sound) ’l—apple, cattle ’m—
spasm ’n—hidden (n)—as in French bon, vin, blanc (a nasalized sound) ng—sing
o—carrot, summon oh—go
oo—soon
or—for
oor—poor ow—cow
oy—toy
sh—she
th—thin
th—this u—focus, column uh—up, but ur—turn
uu—pull, took y or eye—by, I zh—measure (y)—indicates that some speakers employ the y sound of you
and others do not: for example, N(Y)OO, new

Syllables printed in capitals are stressed. In words with primary and secondary
stress, the syllable with primary stress is printed in boldface capitals and the
syllable with secondary stress is printed in roman capitals: for example, pruh-
NUHN-see-AY-shin (pronunciation).
LIST OF KEYWORDS
LEVEL 1
1. DEPRAVITY
2. PRESUMPTUOUS
3. GRANDIOSE
4. DISSEMINATE
5. ECLECTIC
6. SERVILE
7. VORACIOUS
8. CONVOLUTED
9. RANT
10. STRATAGEM
11. EMACIATED
12. MISGIVING
13. ADULATION
14. DEVOTEE
15. VIVACIOUS
16. ANACHRONISTIC
17. GARISH
18. QUALM
19. CONSUMMATE
20. IMPERTINENT
21. RAMIFICATION
22. ELUCIDATE
23. ADAGE
24. BESOTTED
25. RUEFUL
26. SPASMODIC